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This thesis consists of a novel, eighteenth, and an exegesis, The ‘Lad Lit’ Dilemma: Institutional influences on creative writing practice. It will address my research question; how did institutional factors surrounding the publishing category of Lad Lit influence my creative practice in drafting and re-drafting the novel eighteenth? eighteenth is the story of Will Swift, a seventeen year-old Brisbane university student. Will is part of a close group of friends from high school. When he falls for Kate, family friend of his mate Simon, his first semester of study becomes more complicated than he might have expected. Will’s movement through these issues and character development is represented symbolically through four eighteenth birthday parties. The project’s exegesis then analyses the changing nature of the publishing industry in the last twenty years, and the implications of these changes for creative writers. Together, the two elements of this practice-led research will articulate the shift in the balance between the cultural and commercial imperatives of publishers, explain the impact of this shift for the publishing category of Lad Lit, and explore the ramifications of this for creative writing practitioners.

[pt] O trabalho concebe o poema como arte que opera na recriação da realidade, possibilitando aos seres humanos o conhecimento de si e dos outros; daí a consideração sobre a experiência criadora e estética que é capaz de proporcionar na educação escolar. Constata a difícil relação que foi se estabelecendo entre a escola e a utilização por ela feita de poemas, seja por meio de uma seleção inadequada de distorções do poema ou, quando esteticamente válidos, transformados ou desfigurados por meio de atividades meramente técnicas. Nos anos 80, a divulgação da concepção de linguagem como forma de interação verbal provocou um giro no ensino de Língua Portuguesa, afetando na segunda metade da década de 90 a política educacional do país, como se vê nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais de Língua Portuguesa e no Programa Nacional do Livro Didático, que tomam principalmente a teoria dos gêneros do discurso como referência para o trabalho com a linguagem. Entretanto, análises feitas por diversos autores mostram que as mudanças trazidas pela concepção de linguagem como forma de interação verbal pouco alteraram os equívocos aos quais o poema é submetido na escola, sendo o livro didático, em grande parte, responsabilizado pela escolarização inadequada que oferece, como também o mercado editorial que faz circular obras pouco representativas do ponto de vista estético. Realiza, então, uma pesquisa em quatro escolas da cidade de Juiz de Fora, MG, de diferentes redes de ensino, em quartas e oitavas séries, que teve como objetivo investigar a escolarização do poema em salas de aula do ensino fundamental, em duas situações: em quarta e oitava séries em que o livro didático não era utilizado e em ambas as séries em que o livro didático utilizado fora recomendado com distinção pela avaliação sistemática do MEC, divulgada no Guia do Livro Didático. Optou-se, metodologicamente, pelo paradigma crítico, delineando-se as seguintes questões de investigação: Como são desenvolvidas as práticas de oralidade/leitura/escrita nas aulas de Língua Portuguesa? Como o poema é inserido nessas práticas? De que maneira a interação com poemas, proporcionada pela escola, possibilita a crianças e jovens manifestarem sua identidade, fazerem escolhas, expressarem suas visões de mundo? De que maneira a presença ou ausência do livro didático favorece a experiência estética de professores e alunos com os poemas? Foi possível constatar alterações satisfatórias na utilização que a escola vem fazendo dos poemas, o que contribui para deixar emergir a experiência estética e a manifestação da alteridade das crianças e dos jovens, ficando evidente o valor que se atribui à linguagem poética, que representa a outra voz diante da abundância dos gêneros do discurso dos mass media que comparecem nas salas de aula, sendo estes atualmente submetidos, na maioria das vezes, a uma equivocada escolarização.
[en] This study conceives poem as an art which operates in the reinvention of reality, allowing human beings to better understand themselves and the others; hence, the consideration of the creative and esthetic existence it is able to provide in school education. The study also detects the difficult relation slowly established between school and its use of poems, whether by means of an inappropriate selection of poem distortions or, when esthetically valid, transformed and disfigured by merely technical activities. In the 80s, the diffusion of the language conception as a means of verbal interaction caused a turn in the teaching of the Portuguese Language, affecting the country´s educational policy in the second half of the 90s, as seen in the National Standard Curriculum for the Portuguese Language (Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais de Língua Portuguesa) and in the National Program for the Didactic Book (Programa Nacional do Livro Didático), which mainly use the discourse genre theory as a reference for language work. Nevertheless, analyses done by several authors show that the changes caused by the language conception as a means of verbal interaction have brought forth very little change in the mistaken form in which poem is used in school. The didactic book is made mostly responsible for the inappropriate schoolarization that it offers, as well as the publishing market which circulates works which, from the esthetic point of view, are not so representative. Thus, this research was done in four schools in the city of Juiz de Fora, MG, each one part of different teaching districts (or units), involving 4th and 8th grades, with the objective of investigating the schoolarization of poem in Middle School classrooms, in two situations: in 4th and 8th grades in which the didactic book was not used, and in the same grades in which the book had been especially recommended by the MEC systematic evaluation, published in the Guia do Livro Didático (Didactic Book Guide). The critical paradigm was methodologically opted for, outlining the following investigation questions: How are the verbality/reading/writing practices developed in the Portuguese Language classes? How is poem inserted in these practices? How does the interaction with poems, provided by schools, allow children and adolescents to manifest their identity, to make choices, to express their views of the world? How does the presence or absence of the didactic book favor the esthetic experience of teachers and students with the poems? It was possible to detect satisfactory changes in the use of poems made by the school, helping emerge the esthetic experience and the manifestation of the children and the adolescent´s alterity. The value ascribed to poetic language is evident, a language which represents the other voice faced with the abundance of mass media discursive genres present in the classrooms and currently submitted, most of the times, to an erroneous schoolarization.

THESIS TITLE Children with Specific Language Impairment in the School Environment ABSTRACT The thesis focuses on children with specific language impairment (also called developmental dysphasia) in the school environment and it is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part consists of four chapters. The first chapter describes specific language impairment and related terminology, defines a younger school-age child and also deals with causes, diagnosis and therapy of specific language impairment. The second chapter discusses social and communication skills of a child and the impact of specific language impairment on these skills. The third chapter concentrates on reading, writing and particular influences of specific language impairment which are associated with the development of other disorders and difficulties. The fourth chapter describes adaptation of a child with specific language impairment to the school environment. The empirical part consists of qualitative research, designed as multiple case studies, that was carried out among five younger school-age respondents. It attempted to determine how specific language impairment affects a child in the school environment and the empirical part contains results of this research. Besides the analysis and data interpretation, the...

[pt] O ponto de partida desta tese é o debate em torno de políticas de ação afirmativa voltadas para afro- descendentes e estudantes oriundos de escolas públicas no Rio de Janeiro. No âmbito deste debate, lanço meu olhar para o papel da cultura escrita no interior do projeto de vir a ser universitário entre os setores populares. Afastando-me da ideologia do déficit, procuro enfrentar a discussão sobre a desigualdade imposta pelo sistema educacional no Brasil, no que diz respeito, especificamente, à relação dos setores populares com a cultura escrita. Com este objetivo, foram realizadas entrevistas e observação participante em duas universidades, sendo uma pública e outra privada. Houve, também, um processo de imersão em uma comunidade de baixa renda e, além disso, buscou-se estabelecer uma aproximação em três espaços de formação engajados nos movimentos de inclusão e permanência destes setores na universidade: um pré-vestibular comunitário e dois projetos desenvolvidos nas duas universidades com o objetivo de minimizar as dificuldades específicas apresentadas por estes grupos em relação à leitura e à escrita. Trabalhando com o conceito da leitura e da escrita como práticas sociais, a pesquisa aponta para a dimensão formadora da universidade (ao menos as que foram pesquisadas), menos por eventuais estratégias pedagógicas, mas, principalmente, por processos de socialização em uma comunidade de leitores formada por professores com nível de letramento elevado e um ambiente favorável. A universidade é apontada como um espaço propício à apreensão do habitus destas práticas, seus gestos e objetos que compõem um tipo de sociabilidade característico e que, por diversas razões, infelizmente, não se dá de forma satisfatória, ao longo dos ensinos fundamental e médio.
[en] The starting point of this thesis is the debate that surrounds affirmative action policy concerning African descendants, and students coming from public schools, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In the context of this debate, the role of written culture is considered within the project of becoming a university student. Steering clear of deficit ideology, this thesis aims at confronting the discussion about inequalities determined by the Brazilian educational system, specifically concerning the relationship between the popular classes and written culture. Interviews and participant observations were carried out in two universities, one of them public and the other private. A process of immersion in a low-income community was carried out, as well as investigation of three educational spaces engaged in movements of inclusion and permanence of these groups in the university: a community admission examinations preparation course and two projects developed in the universities, the objective of which is to minimize the specific difficulties regarding reading and writing presented by members of these groups. Working with the concept of reading and writing as social practice, the research points to the formative dimension of university, less as a result of specific pedagogic strategies than through socialization processes in a community of readers composed of literate teachers and a propitious environment. The university is shown to be an advantageous space for the acquisition of the habitus of these practices, their gestures and objects, which comprise a characteristic kind of sociability that, unfortunately, for various reasons, is not satisfactorily accomplished during elementary and secondary education.

Lesbian Detective Fiction: the outsider within is a creative writing thesis in two parts: a draft lesbian detective novel, titled Fatal Development (75%) and an exegesis containing a critical appraisal of the sub-genre of lesbian detective fiction, and of my own writing process (25%). Creative work: Fatal Development -- It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a dead body, but it didn’t seem to get any easier. -- When Dirk and Stacey discover a body in the courtyard of their Brisbane woolstore apartment, it is close friend and neighbour, Kersten Heller, they turn to for support. The police assume Stuart’s death was an accident, but when it emerges that he was about to take legal action against the woolstore’s developers, Bovine, Kersten decides there must be more to it. Her own apartment has flooded twice in a month and the builders are still in and out repairing defects. She discovers Stuart was not alone on the roof when he fell to his death and the evidence he had collected for his case against Bovine has gone missing. Armed with this knowledge, and fed up with the developer’s ongoing resistance to addressing the building’s structural issues, Kersten organises a class action against Bovine. Kersten draws on her past training as a spy to investigate Stuart’s death, hiding her activities, and details of her past, from her partner, Toni. Her actions bring her under increasing threat as her apartment is defaced, searched and bugged, and she is involved in a car chase across New Farm. Forced to fall back on old skills, old habits and memories return to the surface. When Toni discovers that Kersten has broken her promise to leave the investigation to the police, she walks out. The neighbouring – and heritage-listed – Riverside Coal development site burns to the ground, and Kersten and Dirk uncover evidence of a network of corruption involving developers and local government officials. After she is kidnapped in broad daylight, narrowly escaping from the boot of a moving car, Kersten is confident she is right, but with Toni not returning her calls, and many of the other residents selling up, including Dirk and Stacey, Kersten begins to question her judgment. In a desperate attempt to turn things around, Kersten calls on an old Agency contact to help prove Bovine was involved in Stuart’s death, her kidnapping, and ongoing corruption. To get the evidence she needs, Kersten plays a dangerous game: letting Bovine know she has uncovered their illegal operations in order to draw them into revealing themselves on tape. Hiding alone in a hotel room, Kersten is finally forced to confront her past: When Mirin didn’t come home that night, I was ready to go out and find her myself, disappear, and start a new life together somewhere far away. Instead they pulled me in before I could finish making arrangements, questioned me for hours, turned everything around. It was golden child to problem child in the space of a day. This time, she’s determined, things will turn out differently. Exegesis: The exegesis traces the development of lesbian detective fiction, including its dual origins in detective and lesbian fiction, to compare the current state of the sub-genre with the early texts and to establish the dominant themes and tropes. I focus particularly on Australian examples of the sub-genre, examining in detail Claire McNab’s Denise Cleever series and Jan McKemmish’s A Gap in the Records, in order to position my own lesbian detective novel between these two works. In drafting Fatal Development, I have attempted to include some of the political content and complexity of McKemmish’s work, but with a plot-driven narrative. I examine the dominant tropes and conventions of the sub-genre, such as: lesbian politics; the nature of the crime; method of investigation; sex and romance; and setting. In the final section, I explain the ways in which I have worked within and against the subgenre’s conventions in drafting a contemporary lesbian detective novel: drawing on tradition and subverting reader expectations. Throughout the thesis, I explore in detail the tradition of the fictional lesbian detective as an outsider on the margins of society, disrupting notions of power and gender. While the lesbian detective’s outsider status grants her moral agency and the capacity to achieve justice and generate change, she is never fully accepted. The lesbian detective remains an outsider within. For the lesbian detective, working within a system that ultimately discriminates against her involves conflict and compromise, and a sense of double-play in being part of two worlds but belonging to neither. I explore how this double-consciousness can be applied to the lesbian writer in choosing whether to write for a mainstream or lesbian audience.